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My letter to the L.A. Times Bloggers (RE: Netlfix)

By jjpuorro | June 2, 2009

Hi all,

On our Netflix captioning group on Facebook, Jamie Berke asked me to write a letter to the L.A. Times technolgy bloggers. The bloggers are: Chris Gaither, David Sarno, and Jim Puzzanghera. The letter is pasted below, I sent it about 5 minutes ago.

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Hi L.A. Times Bloggers,

My name is Jerry, I am a deaf person who relies on closed captioning. I would love it if Netflix would incorporate closed captioning and/or subtitles in their “Instant View” online streaming rentals. I blogged about this two years ago here: http://blog.deafread.com/iwii/archives/1…

Then last week I read this blog:  http://willworkforjustice.blogspot.com/2… (see paragraphs 13 and 14). At the Netflix shareholder meeting, its CEO, Reed Hastings mentioned that captioning and subtitling was not “an active agenda item” and that Netflix would incorporate it when its competitors do so.

This has started off a firestorm in the deaf/hard-of-hearing community. Right now, there is a Facebook group dedicated to the cause of getting Netflix to caption its online streaming content. The name of the Facebook group is: “Netflix Watch-Instantly Needs Closed Captions!” and by the last count it had 366 members after having only 200 members this morning.

Netflix also uses “Silverlight” technology to stream its online content and as evidenced by the links below, Silverlight has the capability to display captions/subtitles with a little work.
(Links: http://joel.neubeck.net/2008/07/sl2videoplayer-closed-captioning/ and http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/keydet/Adding-Closed-Captioning-to-video-using-Silverlight-ASPNET-AJAX-WCF-and-an-external-data-source/)
This bothers me as a deaf person because the technology has been around for two years now and clearly will play a big role in the future (I doubt we will be using DVD’s anymore within 5 years) and I am already left out. My only choice is to wait for DVD’s in the mail. Reed Hastings (the Netflix CEO) is big on educational reform and it does not occur to him that many of the children in California who speak a second language could benefit from subtitles. I know I did help me learn to read when I was a child and my mother bought a closed captioning box from Sears. My reading proficiency skyrocketed thereafter. Also, this can benefit hearing people as well because not everyone wants the sound on when viewing movies as well (say someone wants to watch a movie in bed, but does not want to wake up his/her spouse).
I am curious as to your thoughts on this?
Thank you,
Jerry

Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

One Response to “My letter to the L.A. Times Bloggers (RE: Netlfix)”

  1. RLM Says:
    June 3rd, 2009 at 7:40 am

    Jerry,

    Amazingly great letter to the L.A. Times editor!

    Please let us know if the L.A. Times print your letter or not.

    The South Florida Blade newspaper did print my letter to the editor about the secondhand smoking exposures at various gay establishments and urged them to discontinue the indoor smoking practices.

    Some bars responded to greater health concerns and banned them right away.

    RLM

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